MicrosoftAgreed - the value this initiative adds is far outweighed by the confusion it causes. The templates are really just a random bunch of web parts on pages that most organizations are going to have to customize anyway. It would be far more useful to streamline the old classic site template feature so we can more easily create and specify our own templates. We're still using that option to provide a predefined template, but it's a bit convoluted.
For now we're hiding the "apply a site template" option to reduce the mess it has spawned, but for sure, the option to turn it off in the ui is a necessity. I know Msft is trying to be helpful, but this misses the mark by a mile.
